Category: News Articles

Sarah Kessans started her academic career studying plants; now the self-confessed ‘space geek’ is a synthetic biologist trying to build New Zealand’s role in the global space economy. Her research takes place on board 10cm3 nano-satellites and aims to understand how protein crystals grow in microgravity. This knowledge can then be used here on Earth…

Dr Sarah Kessans is a US-born New Zealand scientist and biochemist, a multi-national champion in rowing and was in the top 50 applicants—out of over 18,000—in the NASA astronaut programme. She’s earned degrees in plant and molecular biologies, worked on a plant-based HIV vaccine, and is now working at the cutting edge of synthetic biology…